Looking for a good Kodi Box

[Ratatapa]

Hi everyone i'm looking for a good box for Kodi. Here is the requirement's i'm looking for

1) Not too pricey
2) Must have a NIC (10/100 minimum) (1000 would be great)
3) User Friendly, for my GF
4) Of course reliable and can do 1080p

Thanks

[Mojo]

Probably a Raspberry Pi 2

[Mojo]

Also you can make a pretty good case for Amazon Fire too

[Obiron]

I'll second the Raspberry Pi 2. It handles 1080p no problem. The only issue I've had is that the Kodi GUI can be a little laggy on it, but it's not horrible. If you want to go a little more powerful/pricey, you can build a small PC, or buy a pre-built one. A few years ago, I built one based on an atom processor. My friend at the same time bought an Acer Aspire Revo. I'm not sure what's good in that size/CPU range these days, but something like that would have more than enough power to overcome any lag with the interface.

[orinthia]

Depends how the files are encoded. Even something like the original raspberry pi can do 1080p, but it has to be a specific format, otherwise you're lucky if it can run a 480p or lesser res files with unsupported encoders (10bit encodes kill the thing). Kodi itself is also very customizable, so you would just need to find different skins for it. RPi2 is pretty nice in its own right since you can run a lot more than just android/kodi on it if you wanted to, but you'll need to get a kit and such to put it together (fun route).

If looking for android boxes (set-it-and-forget-it route), look here: http://koditvdevices.com/ This is a small listing of some decent ones, some with ethernet ports, wireless ac, full sized usb ports, android 5.1 (nvidia shield has 6), etc. Read up on those devices though before you purchase, look them up on youtube, google, etc, and try to find reviews. Some might be too new to have many hits, but others might be real duds with deceptively great specs. Depending on what you normally use, amazon's fire tv/stick, apple tv, or even a roku might be better fits (like if you use netflix and the like), though amazon's thingies can be made to run kodi (and other android stuff, limited to 4.2 though) with a little work/luck.

An alternative might be looking at older corporate machines off lease from dell/hp/lenovo/etc outlet sites. It's a fair option in the case you just want another familiar machine instead of trying out an android box or going the fun route. Can find small form factors boxes or laptops with full windows licenses, though just don't get something too old heh.